Basement-door apparatus.



No. 740,080. PATENTEDSEPT. 29, 1903. S. BERRY & K. W. GALE.

- BASEMENT DOOR APPARATUS.

APPLIOATION TILED MAR. 26, 1903. 1

N0 MODEL.

I fin/anion:

m: mums PETERS ca. FNOYO-LITHQ. msmmrcn, n. c.

UNITED STATES ,Patented September 29, 1903 PATENT OFFICE.

SPARKS M. BERRY AND KNIGHT W. GALE, OF LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA.

BASEMENT-DOOR APPARATUS.

SPECIFICATION formingpart of Letterslatent No. 740,080, dated September 29, 1903.

1 Application filed March 26. 1902.

To 011% whom it may concern.-

Be it known that we, SPARKS M. BERRY and KNIGHT W. GALE, citizens of the United States, residing at Los Angeles, in the county of Los Angeles and State of California, have invented a new and useful Basement-Door Apparatus, of which the following is a specification.

Our invention-relates to mechanism for raising and lowering basement-doors such doors, for instance, as open through sidewalks. The apparatus not only raises and lowers the doors, but it also locks the doors in any position in which they may be placed. Thus the doors may be closed flat or flush with the sidewalk, and when in such position they are locked and cannot be opened except from the inside, or

they may be raised to a vertical, or they may be only partially raised from the sidewalk to a slanting position, and when in either of these positions the doors are locked and can only be changed from these positions by a person within the basement.

It is sometimes desirable to raise the doors at an angle inorder to admit a certain amount of light into the basement, and this may be accomplished in the present invention;

Ordinarily basement-doors are held open by means of iron rods or braces having hooked ends which engage holes in flanges on the doors. Chain contrivances are sometimes employed, and with these devices it requires considerable labor to open the doors, and, moreover, when they are opened there is always a danger of the rods becoming loosened from the doors and allowing the same to drop; and an object of the present invention is to provide means whereby the labor of opening the doors will be inconsiderable, so that the heaviest doors can be opened with comparativev ease, and to provide means whereby when the doors are opened the hatchway will be protected at the side by a guard, 'whichis permanently attached to the doors and which cannot become accidentally detached therefrom.

Another object is to provide means carried by one door which will form a support for the other door and to provide means whereby when the doors are nearly closed one door which meshes with the gear 16.

Serial No. 149.688. (No model.)

may have a slight movement independent of the means which operate the door in order to allow the one door to slip by the other door.

In the following specification we will de-' scribe our preferred manner of constructing the apparatus; but it should be understood that the specific construction may be departed from in various ways without evading the claims.

The accompanying drawings illustrate the invention.

Figure I is a vertical section through the sidewalk, showing the apparatus in elevation the doors being shown raised into a vertical position. Fig. II is a plan view of the apparatus and shows only a portion of the doors to which the apparatus is attached. Fig. III is a view looking in the direction of the arrow, Fig. II.

, Referring to the drawings, 1 designates a sidewalk. 2 is a hatchway therein. 3 and 4 are doors hinged, as at 5, to the edge of the hatchway 2. a

v 6 is a rack which is slidably mounted in a guideway 7, the guideway 7 being secured to and depending from one edge of the hatchway, the upper end of the rack .6 carrying a cross-head 8.

9 is a link which connects the cross-head 8 and the door 4.

10 is a link which connects the cross-head 8 with a spring 11, the spring 11 being fastened to the door 3 and being guided by a suitable support 12. Said links 9 and 10 are each attached to free corners of the respective doors and are both on the same side of the hatchway, so as to form a side guard therefor when the doors are opened upwardly, as shown in Fig. I.

i 13 is a shaft mounted in bearings 1 1 and carries a pinion 15, which meshes with the rack 6, the shaft 13 also carrying a bevel-gear 16.

17 is a vertical shaft mounted in bearings 18 and at the top carries a bevelgear 19, At its lower end said shaft 17 carries a bevel-gear 20, which meshes with a bevel-gear 21, carried by a crank-shaft 22, mounted in a bracket 23, which forms part of the bearings 18. The

door 3 has attached to its edge a cleat or tle before the opposite door.

flange 24, which when the doors are lowered flush with the sidewalk projects under the edge of the door 4 and serves to support the latter.

25 is a crank carried on the shaft 22, and when it is desired to raise the doors the crank 25 is turned, which rotates the shafts 17 and Said shaft 13 rotates the pinion 15 and propels the rack 6 upwardly, and the latter, through the medium of the links 9 and 10, swings up the doors 3 and 4:. The doors can be raised to any position desired and will be retained in that position.

In lowering the doors the crank is turned in the reverse direction, and the rack 6 is thereby lowered, pulling down the doors. When the doors have nearly reached their closed position, the flange 24 would strike against the edge of the opposite door 4, and in order to allow the flange 24 to slip under the door 4. we have provided the spring 11, which yields under the weight of the door 3 when said door nears the closed position, and

thereby permits said door 3 to advance more rapidly when nearly down and to close a lit- This allows the flange 24 to slip under the edge of the door 4, and when the doors are down in position the door 4 will rest upon the flange 24 and securely hold the door 3 from springing up,

which it might otherwise do, owing to the fact that it is flexibly connected to the link 10. The walls on opposite sides of the hatchway 2 may be provided with ledges 26, which when the doors are closed support the same and prevent them from springing down.

The mechanism for rotating the pinion 15 might consist of gearing ditferently arranged from that shown in the drawings and as herein described. For instance, it might be a sprocket and chain device; but we have found that the arrangement of gearing shown is the most convenient for the purpose.

What we claim is- 1. In apparatus of the character described, a pair of upwardly-openingoppositely-hinged doors, one of said doors being provided with a flange which projects under the opposite door when the doors are closed, a link attached to each door, gearing connected to both links for moving said doors, and means whereby the door carrying the flange is advanced more rapidly than the other door as the doors near the closed position.

2. In apparatus of the character described, a pair of opposite hinged doors, one of said doors being provided with a flange which projects under the opposite door when the doors are closed, a spring carried by said first door, a link attached to said spring, another link connected to the other door and gearing connected to both of said links for moving said doors.

' In apparatus of the character described, a pair of opposite hinged doors, a flange on one door which projects under the edge of the opposite door when the doors are closed, aspring carried by said first door, a link attached to said spring, another link attached to'the other door, a rack connected to both of said links, a pinion meshing with said rack, and means for rotating said pinion.

In testimony whereof we have signed our names to this specification, in the presence of two subscribing witnesses, at Los Angeles, in the county of Los Angeles and State of California, this 21st day of March, 1903.

SPARKS M. BERRY. KNIGHT W. GALE. Witnesses:

GEORGE T. HACKLEY, FREDERICK S. LYON. 

